The Hitcher: TriStar Pictures/ HBO Home Video
Rating: USA: R/ UK: 18/ Australia: R

I remember first seeing The Hitcher back in 1986, at my local four screen theater. I was only thirteen or fourteen at the time, but fate must have been smiling on me that night because I passed right past the ticket seller without a second glance and walked into the R rated film unchallenged (since it was such a small theater, there was no usher to tear your tickets—they tore them right at the box office—thus eliminating a potential second checkpoint to keep underage kids out of R rated films). I wasn’t sure what to expect as I sat there in the half-light, waiting for the show to begin, but an hour and a half later, I left feeling shaken and excited—The Hitcher had delivered the goods.

Jump ahead to last week. I hadn’t seen The Hitcher since probably 1987—I remember watching it on video a few times at a friend’s house, then promptly moving onto other film pastures—yet I never forgot the film. Sure, I couldn’t sit down and give you a blow by blow description of what happens in each scene, but I could definitely recall certain sequences, and certain images, with complete clarity. As I popped it into the VCR, I felt a fair bit of trepidation—would it live up to the memories? Could it live up to the memories? For the most part, yes.

When Jim Halsey (C. Thomas Howell: ET, Gettysburg) picks up hitch-hiker John Ryder (Rutger Hauer: Split Second, Blind Fury, Blade Runner) he doesn’t realize that he’s just let a savage killer enter his life—a murderer working along a desolate stretch of Texas highway killing anyone kind enough to pick him up. When Ryder is unresponsive to Halsey’s questions, Jim begins to suspect that something might be wrong with his passenger—a fact that’s confirmed seconds later when Ryder has a knife at Jim’s throat. After a few intense moments, Halsey manages to shove Ryder from the car—and thinks that he’s safe. However, Ryder’s seen something in Halsey…something that makes him stalk the young kid across the state—murdering people and framing Halsey in the process.

Long on suspense and chills but short on logic, The Hitcher is another one of those films that proves simple stories tend to scare audiences far more than elaborate, "end of the world" apocalyptic tales. Much like John Carpenter’s Halloween, The Hitcher is a story about a motiveless madman—a man who becomes the personification of evil. Like Carpenter’s film, The Hitcher is largely a cautionary tale—Halloween’s message warns us to keep an eye out for the boogeyman and shows us that teens shouldn’t engage in premarital sex. The Hitcher teaches us not to pick up hitchhikers—different messages, for sure, yet the films are very similar in structure, execution, and impact upon a closer inspection. Now, that’s not to say that I think The Hitcher is as good as Carpenter’s film—because it isn’t. However, I think anyone who labels this film as suspense, or anything other than a horror film for that matter, is missing the mark. At its core, The Hitcher is essentially a slasher variant.

And while the film doesn’t feature any masked, silent madman ala Halloween or Friday the 13th nor the wisecracking Freddy Krueger, it does feature a frightening killer. Ryder is perhaps more frightening than his fictional brethren—mainly because he looks normal. With Jason, Myers, and Krueger it’s pretty easy to figure out that these guys are monsters—they’re masked or scarred and they just don’t look normal. Ryder, though, he could be the guy down the street—a guy you’d interact with without a second thought and not realize that he was a monster until it was too late. That alone makes him pretty creepy.

Yet, that’s not really enough to make the film stand out as a variant on the slasher formula. What really seals the deal is the fact that Ryder, who is certainly a personification of evil, has no motive. Much like Myers in the original Halloween (before the abominable "Laurie Strode was his long lost sister angle that Halloween 2 felt the need to give us), Ryder kills for his own reasons—reasons the audience is never privy to (witnessed by these lines of dialogue: Halsey asks Ryder, "why are you doing this?" to which Ryder responds, "you figure it out"). In essence, this makes the impact of his crimes far more universal—if he kills for no apparent reason, then he could just as easily kill us…and that’s what makes the film more frightening than the subsequent Halloween sequels and the entire Friday the 13th canon.

Even more interesting is the fact that while Ryder never divulges a motive (even when he’s captured by the police—in fact, the cops can’t find any fingerprints, license, or history for the man) he does almost reverse the slasher formula. Instead of wanting to kill Halsey, Ryder seems to almost long for Halsey to stop him. We see this manifest itself in several scenes—the one in the diner (which is just a fantastic scene anyway) and when Halsey confronts Ryder in the truck cabin with Nash’s (Jennifer Jason Leigh) life hanging in the balance. There’s a weird subtextual relationship between these characters—one that the audience knows is there, but is never fully explained. And truthfully, it adds to the film’s mystique

Director Robert Harmon (Nowhere to Run) does a fantastic job here. He repeatedly uses some wonderfully composed wideangle shots of the desolate Texas countryside to drive home the point that Halsey is indeed alone. After the beginning, the film begins to take on a more washed out look, with lots of muted browns—almost mirroring Halsey’s mental state as he becomes more and more run down. He also creates some nice visuals—none more impressive than the one where Ryder places a penny over each of Hasley’s eyes while sitting in café. You never know exactly why he does it (money for the boatkeeper at the river Styx, perhaps?) but it looks really cool and creepy. Harmon also keeps the movie moving at a fast clip, never allowing you too much time to dwell on all the implausibilites inherent in the script.

And yes, the film is implausible—majorly so, in fact. Ryder shoots down a helicopter—while driving a pick-up truck offroad—with a pistol. The police become obsessed with capturing Halsey for the murder of two cops—when it should be obvious to any beat cop that Hasley couldn’t have shot them because the bullets were fired from a truck that pulled up alongside the car—not from the backseat where Hasley was sitting. Things like this can be found all throughout the film, but don’t nitpick too much…just bring your willing suspension of disbelief, sit back, and enjoy the ride.

The film’s performances are all credible with Rutger Hauer being the real star. Hauer brings a palpable sense of menace to the character of Ryder, making what could have easily become a caricature psycho character and making him into one of the most terrifying horror creations of the last twenty years. Howell and Jennifer Jason Leigh do nice jobs as well, neither being to unbelievable nor to over the top.

The film features a decent amount of gore, but the best of it is never shown. There are shootings and stabbings and a severed finger found in an order of french fries, but the film’s coup de grace is the infamous truck scene. In this sequence, Ryder has strung Jennifer Jason Leigh between the rig of a semi and the trailer. He sits with his foot on the clutch as the cops have him surrounded and calls for Halsey. Halsey enters the cabin with Ryder, but can’t convince him to give up—causing Ryder to take his foot off the clutch and rip Nash in half. Unfortunately, we never get to see any of the gore.

The Hitcher is a very good cult film that has never received the mainstream respect it deserves. It’s a slasher movie with some taut psychological thriller undertones. Hauer turns in a masterful performance as the motiveless hitchhiker who kills for no apparent reason—other than because he can. If you’re a fan of cult cinema or slasher films, then The Hitcher is well worth a rental.




Recommended: Yes